Blade Symposium Master Class - Worth it?

By Bjorn Jacobsen, March 2022

Before the 2022 Blade Symposium the Australian Knife Art Association (KAA) held a Master Class at Tharwa Valley Forge. The "master class" is held as a higher-level course where the students make a signature style knife and previous teachers have been makers like Kyle Royers and Rodrigo Sfreddo.

2022 Bowie Master Class:

The master class this year was taught by Jackson Rumble, Journeyman Smith and would take the students through making one of his signature style big bowies. Jackson is an exceptional maker, check him out on Instagram here: LINK

Video of our experience:

Here is the full 7 min video of our class showing how it all went down, including Jamie singing, Pierre doing his best coal miner impression and Billy giving his blade some stick;

6 students max:

So the class filled up quickly, all six spots were taken. Bjorn was back and forth a bit on going, taking 4 days off work to make knives is a big ask, at $2000 it is quite a bit of money, but he really wanted to. If ever getting his skills to a level good enough for full Guild membership, this would be a good step in the right direction.  Jamie had already signed up and said there was only one spot left "so get onto it if you want to come along" - and that was it, Bjorn signed up as well.

Turns out Pierre from Mefflin knives had signed up as well, so we were already 3 mates going to the master class! 

When we got there we met Francois from Yandiwa we also knew from before, as well as Billy and Mathew from Canberra who both had been to Tharwa Valley Forge before and came back for the master class with Jackson.

Four full days:

The master class was over four days, Tuesday to Friday from 8 am to about 5 pm. But in reality we probably squeezed in 5 days of work, on the Thursday we were at it from 8 in the morning to 10.30 pm at night before we stopped the hand sanding. We must have hand sanded for a solid 10 hours on the Thursday (or at least Bjorn had to..)

Amazing format:

Jackson is not only an exceptional maker himself, but he is - probably more importantly to us -  a great teacher. He is friendly and helpful, passionate about what he does and it rubbed off on all of us. After a long day of running between students helping each of us getting it "just right" at whatever step we were at, he was still smiling. Still happy to go over something again, explaining in a way that made sense to each of us. 

It really shows that he has been teaching full-time for years, getting the message across in a clear way and when spending four days with a small group of people this really makes a massive difference. Every night we left tired but happy, jumping out of bed the next morning eager to get back into the workshop.

The format of the workshop was clearly laid out, we knew what was coming next and what we needed to achieve on this current step before moving forward. Jackson would talk us through eacch step, then demonstrate on the grinder, mill, drill press, disc grinder, hand sanding or whatever the step was before we repeated it on our own. It makes for a very comfortable working process where we asked questions if needing more info, then doing the step ourselves with Jackson there ready to help if needed.

Tharwa Valley Forge

Karim and the team at Tharwa have built an amazing place just outside of Canberra. The biggest knife school by far in our part of the world, and with a spread of classes and teachers that makes it a joy to come and spend a few days there. We stayed at the Cuppacumbalong  cottage and was fed every night with home-made meals prepared by the gang at Tharwa. Lamb from their own property, homegrown vegetables, mint sauce from their own herb garden - just to mention dinner one night. This was not the first visit for any of us, but again I think we all wished we could stay for a bit longer.

Templates:

We each made templates in G10 from two of Jackson's signature style bowie blades, handles, guards as well as the butt end of the handle. We ground out the profile in 1095 steel (9.5 mm thick!), got a refresher on push stick grinding before rough grinding our blades out and heat treating them. 

How cool is that? We now each have all these templates, plus a custom made plunge line jig as well as a false-edge plate Jackson made for each of us to bring home.

Practice run on the handle sculpting:

We each made a practice handle from a block of wood with a guard made of something easier to grind than steel. Then Jackson showed each step on sculpting the bottom half using the 3" contact wheel on the 2x48" shopmate grinders, small wheel to get into the corners of the guard, back on the flat platen to shape the front of the handle, then disc grinder for the flats before hand sanding. This turned out to be another great example of how Jackson does things, letting us run through the whole process on a practice handle before comitting to our higher grade blocks on the actual knives.

Hand sanding

We knew making a bowie would be different than "just making a bigger knife" but had not anticipated how much more complicated it would be. There are several times as many elements, angles and issues to deal with than just making a bigger size of the knives we normally make (Bjorn's comment, usually making simple chef knives with a flat grind and rounded handle)

And boy is there a lot of hand sanding involved! We made hand sanding paddles from perspex and spray glued abrasive paper to these. First with hard backing, then with rubber attached for the satin finish. On the Thursday which ended being the longest day by far, we must have hand sanded 2/3 of the day. It was all worth it though, when looking at the satin finish of the blade and all facets we had to deal with.

Completed knives:

Somehow we ended up without a good shot of all 5 bowie knives together. The Friday afternoon ended up being a bit of a rush getting ready, and this was the only group shot of the knives we seem to have ended up with. Pierre took a lot of high-quality footage from the workshop and there will be more quality content coming from the KAA so stay tuned for better photos and video from them.

Thank you

A big Thank You to the KAA for organising the Master Class, to Tharwa Valley Forge for taking so great care of us while there (Did we mention how good the food is?!). And an even bigger Thank You to Jackson Rumble for his teaching style, his passion for taking us all on a journey to improve our knife making skills while making an amazing knife - thank you!

Summary: Was it worth it?

The master class was very much worth it. Being able to spend four days from morning to night with a great teacher, in a great workshop, with a great bunch of people cannot do anything but further your skills as a knife maker. Picking up techniques and tips, process tips around order of operation, little improvements to your own way of doing things by having Jackson there to correct where needed - it very much was worth it. As Billy said "I'd do it again in a heartbeat".

I think having had 5 days rather than four would have made it even better. Making sure we got that last 10% done without having to work late Thursday and stress a little on the Friday. (Bjorn's comment)

Brothers of the Bowie

Here is a group shot of us all, tired but happy with blades not yet done on the table in front of us.

From left we have Billy, Bjorn, Mathew, Pierre, Francois, Jamie and Jackson.

Pierre coined the term "brothers of the bowie" as a nickname for the group and it seemed to fit us well!